"Evoking Anita Diamant's The Red Tent in style and Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha in setting" (Jewish Journal), this sweeping, atmospheric novel restores biblical Esther to her full humanity while reanimating the glittering Persian empire in which her story unfolded. Taken by edict to be part of King Xerxes' harem, the Jewish orphan Hadassah is told by her guardian (and betrothed) Mordechai to call herself Esther and hide her ethnic origins. But when the king's advisor Haman sets out to destroy Persia's Jews, Esther risks her position and her life to save Mordechai and her people.

"The Gilded Chamber has a dreamy, timeless quality that takes the reader deep into the world of ancient Persia.... Queen Esther, savior of her people, becomes a living, breathing person in these pages."óMargaret George